Hijacked Thread in need of closure.

[Dragongirl]

Canis - Talos, destruction of everything.

 

[Morgenstern]

Um...

So beyond this ability to "detect people I should then smite" and a smite ability keyed to "those whot needs a stout drubing" what outside of the cute little pargraph on their code sugest lawful good is the central feature of this class?

If sacrificing yourself was Reealy what they were about, why do they not have a mechanic that relates to it?

Aside from somantics over then name (and no, my understanding of the world 'paladin' does not imply lawful or good- simply devoted to a cause that thinks of itself that way ) how much work would converting the class to an "open-ended-plug-in-an-alignment-and-go" core class.

* If any good, detect and smite evil. If any evil, detect and smite good. Chaotic Neutral detects and smites chaos. Chaotic neutral detects and smites Law. (yes, true neutral's a pain, but probably detects and smites the extremes ). Circle of Protection follows this pattern too.

* Evil inflicts damage as touch attack instead of curing. Neutrals pick and stick with it (uh, clerics anyone?).

In otherwords, other than floating the alignment targing stuff so it's always opposite, what's the problem with providing 8 other pargraphs (which would probably be the single most valuable thing to come out of this discussion ) that outlines <i>what being a 'champion' of those alignments is!!</i>

If the paladin name is sacred, then pull out a copy of Dragon 106 and take the names from there (and yes, the diference between a paramander and the paramandyr is the difference between lay on hands and lay on hurt ). If you are really ambitious, you could even convert some of their abilityies, as those did have some alignments specific flavor, something I think third ed. quite deliberately stripped paladins of.

Notice the icon. NOT a big ol' armored knight (until such time as she gets the mount- we seen any pics of her high level yet ?).

 

[jgbrowning]

"Thou shalt have no god before me" seems pretty much just putting myself on top of the heap. the christian god doesnt seem to meet your criteria very well.

Hades: NE "Death is the lot of all mortals, the thing that sets them apart from deities, and it must be accepted even if it brings grief."

joe b.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Canis - Talos, destruction of everything.

Nihilism = Insanity

Not so much a Cause as a symptom, IMO. I did mention that in my previous post, actually. I don't define pure nihilism as a "cause", personally.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Instead of trying to make me a straw man and claim that somewhere in my post i made the claim that "no one has used anything but slang in about 1000 years," ...

No, I just extended your comment about slang to its logical conclusion. You were saying that dictionary definition is the only criterion on which to judge a word. That's ridiculous. Words are just ideas, and ideas need to evolve. Since that dictionary definition was written, the idea in our culture has evolved.

...how about you and i discuss the fact that the world "Paladin" doesn't mean what you think it does to most of the world. It means champion, defender of a cause, a paragon of chivalry, a heroic champion. What it doesn't mean is Lawful Good and exclusively Lawful Good.

Now it may mean "Lawful Good" to readers of fantasy literature who play DnD and to DnD players who dont read fantasy literature.

And readers of fantasy literature who DON'T play D&D. And readers of non-fantasy, heroic historical literature who don't play D&D. And readers of Medieval Romance who don't play D&D. And readers of Harlequin Romance novels who don't play D&D (found that out when the word "paladin" slipped out of my mouth in front of my mother about 10 years ago. At the time, she read almost nothing but trashy romance novels, and the notion of a paladin she derived from THAT source was pure Aristotlean Lawful Good.)

I can provide dozens of non-D&D players who think of a VERY Lawful Good person when they think of a paladin, if you'd like. I could start gathering a petition tomorrow. If you want, I can limit it to people with Ph.D.s in relevant fields, or I could collect high school student opinions. They'll be the same.

But the concept of chivalry, again historically here and not in a DnD sense, does not contain the DnD sense of "Good". The social order at the time of chivalry was definitely not what you would define in DnD as "Good."

THIS IS BASED ON LITERATURE NOT HISTORY. In the literature, the truly chivalrous knights are ALWAYS Good. The Evil guys can pretend to chivalry to a point, but it always breaks down.

 

[Lela]

Note how my little paperback Random House dictionary showed that, where jgbrowning's definition does not. This goes to show a major lesson - don't try to be authoritative with anything less than a full Oxford or Webster's Unabridged definition. Everybody else is summarizing, and will probably miss one or more meanings.

That's why I use Dictionary.com. They don't have to worry about paper costs and are less likely to miss things.

Note that they also had the 12 Knights, if you notice my earlier post. Whether or not you're Catholic or Orthodox (the great schism hadn't quite happened yet), they still had a suprime impact on history, including language develpment. I don't think it's slang; it's one of the definitions (and I've seen three different ones so far).

 

[jgbrowning]

It isn't just books. Check TV, too. 1957, Have Gun Will Travel. Main character named Paladin. One might then notice some similarities to Murlynd, the six-gun toting paladin from Greyhawk...

However, the idea of a "paladin" being a highly honorable knight probably dates back to somewhere around the year 800. The 12 most illustrious knights of Charlegmagne's court were known as "paladins".

I think something close to 1200 years of history and legend probably renders this usage more than "slang".

Note how my little paperback Random House dictionary showed that, where jgbrowning's definition does not. This goes to show a major lesson - don't try to be authoritative with anything less than a full Oxford or Webster's Unabridged definition. Everybody else is summarizing, and will probably miss one or more meanings.

Again, highly honorable in a society that kept the larger part of its people in a slavery like condition would not qualify for what Canis had called a "knight who epitomizes Lawful Good." It would qualify for a knight who epitomizes Lawful Neutral or Lawful Evil. But definitely NOT good.

For that, my less than completely authoritative dictionary did perform adaquately.

joe b.

 

[Dragongirl]

Nihilism = Insanity

Not so much a Cause as a symptom, IMO. I did mention that in my previous post, actually. I don't define pure nihilism as a "cause", personally.

You asked for an example, and you can keep on limiting what the example is all you want.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

You asked for an example, and you can keep on limiting what the example is all you want.

My apologies. Consider me soundly chastised. It happens a lot when I start typing before I've saddled up my brains...

 

[jgbrowning]

No, I just extended your comment about slang to its logical conclusion. You were saying that dictionary definition is the only criterion on which to judge a word. That's ridiculous. Words are just ideas, and ideas need to evolve. Since that dictionary definition was written, the idea in our culture has evolved.
------------------------------------------------
No what you did was try to make me say that dictionaries dont change to represent a changing language. THATs what your "logical conclusion" was based upon, not upon the fact that until something is defined, it is considered slang.

------------------------------------------
And readers of fantasy literature who DON'T play D&D. And readers of non-fantasy, heroic historical literature who don't play D&D. And readers of Medieval Romance who don't play D&D. And readers of Harlequin Romance novels who don't play D&D (found that out when the word "paladin" slipped out of my mouth in front of my mother about 10 years ago. At the time, she read almost nothing but trashy romance novels, and the notion of a paladin she derived from THAT source was pure Aristotlean Lawful Good.)

------------
I am pleased to see the slang has filtered into romance novels.
-------------

I can provide dozens of non-D&D players who think of a VERY Lawful Good person when they think of a paladin, if you'd like. I could start gathering a petition tomorrow. If you want, I can limit it to people with Ph.D.s in relevant fields, or I could collect high school student opinions. They'll be the same.

-------------
and guess what, they'll be using slang. It don't matter how educated they are. education does not mean they dont use slang, or that the dont think a particular definition should not be slang.

-------------


THIS IS BASED ON LITERATURE NOT HISTORY. In the literature, the truly chivalrous knights are ALWAYS Good. The Evil guys can pretend to chivalry to a point, but it always breaks down.

Well, chivalry is historical even if you wish it wasnt.. the literature about chivalry is also a historical concept that attempted to turn brutal murderers into less brutal murderers. It tried to turn the real life people into the concept of "good". rather unsuccessfully.

joe b.

edit: sorry about this post. i dont know howto break pieces up to respond properly. do i just move the "/Quote" thingy around?